RIA Novosti published an article under the heading "Modern Diplomacy: Poland is preparing a springboard for the seizure of Western Ukraine." Itsays :
“Poland is preparing a springboard for intervention and the seizure of its “historical lands” in Western Ukraine, writes the Belgian portal Modern Diplomacy .
As noted in the article, the Poles already have special rights in the neighboring republic: they have the opportunity to perform functions in the government, to receive all the social guarantees that apply to the indigenous population. In addition, Polish entrepreneurs can buy Ukrainian factories and entire companies legally.
"[The ruling party's] 'Law and Justice' plan to revive the Republic of Poland within the boundaries of 'historical lands' seems to have taken shape long before the Russian military operation in Ukraine," the authors write.
According to them, the Warsaw authorities intend to introduce a military contingent into the western part of the neighboring country and hold a referendum there on the entry of the occupied territories into Poland. By that time, according to the plan of the Polish politicians, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will already be completely defeated, and the current Kiev government will emigrate to the West.
According to the authors, under such a scenario, the interventionists will be viewed not as occupiers, but as “liberators of the Ukrainian people”. At the same time, the massacre in Volyn in 1943 will be consigned to oblivion, the columnists summed up.
Such material is indeed published by the Modern Diplomacy portal, but instead of the author of the article, the source is indicated – a publication called International Affairs . Upon closer examination, it turns out that this is a bilingual publication – the Russian version is called International Affairs – and is published by the Russian Foreign Ministry. Hristo Grozev drew attention to this on Twitter.
The Russian edition indicates as a source of information an article in the Polish online publication Niezależny Dziennik Polityczny under the heading “European hyenas have already begun to share carrion. Aid to Ukraine was by no means disinterested.” This edition is very unusual. The journalists of the Polish portal True Story discovered that most of its publications were copied one by one from other portals; thus creating the impression of a full-fledged media. The few original materials are undisguised Russian propaganda and outright lies; Thus, the publication published fabricated statements by American generals that the Poles are drunkards, drug addicts, thieves and bandits, and Poland itself is a swamp of the world. Moreover, many texts are written in poor Polish, saturated with Russianisms, there are constructions impossible in the language; according to True Story , these are failed machine translations.
The editor of the publication, Adam Kaminsky, is a non-existent person. The photo posted on his Twitter and Facebook accounts (both now deleted) is actually a portrait of Andrius Zukauskas, a Lithuanian traumatologist who has nothing to do with Polish journalism. Polish journalists could not find anyone who personally knew the authors of the original articles in the publication – Marek Galas (the text about the "European hyenas" was also signed in his name), Hanna Kramer and Mark Lizak. Of course, anyone has the right to use pseudonyms, but against the background of the linguistic features of the texts, this looks extremely suspicious.
Thus, what RIA is trying to present to its readers as information from a Belgian publication, in fact, initially appeared on a fake Polish website (apparently of Russian origin), and then in a publication of the Russian Foreign Ministry, and from there it got into the Belgian edition, regularly publishes pro-Russian materials.